30. Harden
T he sound of two of my best friends fucking is the most erotic thing I have ever heard, and it makes me fucking sick. I’m hard as fuck, and it makes me sick. Griffin is laying beside me in the dark, panting with need, and it makes me sick. I make myself sick.
Why the fuck am I like this?
Why the fuck can’t I just be normal?
Both of us are laying here in the pitch black, listening to the maddening and addictive sounds coming from the room next door, and neither of us are saying a word. Because what could we say? That we both want her and know we can’t have her? That we wish it was us making her scream like that?
What happened in the club didn’t change anything, she still belongs to Everest, no matter how hard she came while calling out my name.
My name . My fucking name.
Fuck.
That sound is echoing in my mind even now, the weight of her hand on my chest, lingering like a phantom tattoo I don’t ever want to erase.
Not even our year apart could have prepared me for this new onslaught between us.
She’s fucking everywhere and nowhere at the same time, and I might not be able to have her, to let her have me, but I will remember the way she screamed my name in pleasure for eternity.
Then there is him .
Griffin Blake.
My best friend. My oldest friend.
I’ve known him practically forever, so how the fuck did he go from my best friend, to my temptation?
He’s laying beside me quietly, his body as tense as mine, but his hands are stained with the scent of Aurora.
I can smell it even now, and I know it must be driving him as crazy as it’s driving me.
It’s sweet and addictive, and I find myself thinking of sinking his fingers between my lips and licking them clean.
And that’s without the sounds coming from the room next door.
Moan after moan floats through the wall, her cries of pleasure like a fucking noose around my neck, but all I can focus on is him, and his almost silent panted breaths.
My hands itch to reach out and touch his chest, to see if his heart is beating as rapidly as mine.
Is he as turned on as I am? I’m still reeling from the press of his lips against mine, from the kiss neither of us have spoken about since it happened.
I kissed him, I fucking kissed my best friend, and worse than that?
He kissed me back. I tried to brush it off, to use the excuse of my grief and fucked-up-ness to push us back into the firm role of friendship, but what did he do?
He fucking kissed me again, fucking begged me to kiss him.
Fuck. No plea has ever sounded so sweet, and in all my panic and confusion, I did it.
I kissed him and it changed everything, and now I’m not sure where we go from here.
Did we mean it?
Did it change us?
For me, the answer to both of those questions is yes, but what about him?
Is he also listening to them but thinking about me?
“Fuck,” he curses into the dark, that one word scraping against my fucking bones, and I can’t stop my eyes from dancing down and watching, as he readjusts himself in the shadows.
Suddenly I find myself wishing every light in the fucking world was shining on him, just so I could see him better. Which is stupid, because even without Everest’s eidetic memory I could recall every detail about my best friend, but that doesn’t extend to his cock. His very hard and thick cock.
My hands flex with the need for something I don’t understand, as more sounds filter into the darkness between us. That, mixed with Griffin’s heated pants, pulls words from the back of my throat before I can even think about turning on a light and signing them.
“Is that what it’s supposed to sound like?
” My question is nothing more than a croaked whisper of inquisitiveness, but his entire body freezes at the sound of it.
I lick my dry lips in anticipation of his answer, but even one second of silence is enough to have me pushing on.
“I’m only asking because I’ve never done anything sexual,” I rush out, glad we are cloaked by the black of the night, as I add, “Not consensually, anyway.” At that I feel his hands fist the sheets, as if he’s stopping himself from comforting me, and it makes me add one more admission.
“You know, I’ve only ever kissed two people. ”
Aurora and him .
I don’t know why I feel the need to confirm that to him, like it’s important for him to realize what it means, that I’m not like him, I don’t have a hoard of experience beneath my belt. Not any I want to pull on and remember anyway.
A deep exhale leaves him now, bleeding with tension and anger, and I mildly wonder if my past makes him as sick as it does me. I’ve laid myself bare, he knows how broken I am now, and I know he cares, but does it bother him?
“It doesn’t always sound like that,” he states softly, as we hear another pleasured scream through the wall. “Ever is just being a dick and showing off.”
I smile at that, because it’s just so typical of Everest to do something like that, and it’s so typical of Griffin to be pissed off by it.
The two of them have been a pain in my ass since the second Aurora came into our lives, always battling for her attention, and always getting pissed off that she gave it to me so freely.
“It sounds good,” I let myself admit, and Griffin lets out a soft chuckle, which has always been one of my favorite sounds in the world.
“Yeah, I know,” he groans, readjusting himself again, and my throat burns for something I don’t quite know how to ask for.
My own cock is hard as stone in my shorts, and I roll my shoulders to try and shake it off, but it’s no use, especially when Griffin’s attention flicks straight to me.
Growing up in the dark, you learn how to exist in it, which means I know when his stare is on me, I can feel it like the fucking scope of a sniper rifle.
Honestly, I think I’d be able to feel his eyes even in the deepest blacks of the ocean.
“Have you ever… Do you ever jerk off, Haze?” he asks, and the personal question, especially one of this nature, should have my blood turning cold, but all I can focus on is the desire in his voice.
Like he really wants the answer, like he’s desperate for it.
I think about lying, just so used to it that it almost comes naturally, but for once I don’t want to. Especially not to him.
“I’ve tried,” I admit quietly, knowing out of everyone in the world he is the one person I can be honest with, about anything and everything, even if I spent most of my life fighting against that.
“I get too in my head about…” I trail off, not knowing how to neatly box my trauma up into one sentence, but I don’t have to, not with him.
“Try it now,” he simply demands, and the three words have my cold blood turning blazing hot.
“What?” The one word barely makes any sound, my hands itching to sign, to shut myself away and build my comforts back around me, but my best friend would just see right through it.
“You heard me, Haze, try jerking off now, here, with me.” I can hear the determination in his voice, but more than that I can hear the want. He wants me to do this.
“I can’t,” I choke out, even as my heart starts to beat harder in my chest at the thought of doing it, at the thought of doing it for him.
I feel the bed dip and I panic a little, but Griff is only turning on his side so he can face me, his whiskey eyes shining with mischief, even in the dark. He’s so close now that I can feel his hot breath on my face when he talks again, but he’s still not touching me.
So why do I wish that he was?
“Do you think the dark can hide how turned on you are right now?” he purrs, his voice like molten lava down my spine, as his hot words fan my cheek. “I know everything about you, Haze, and I don’t need any light to know your cock is as hard as mine, so take it out and stroke it for me.”
Fuck. Me.
My hands are somehow slow and steady as I heed to his command, reaching out and releasing my cock from the confines of my shorts.
It’s hot and heavy in my hand as I close my fist around my shaft, gasping slightly at the unfamiliar contact.
Griffin groans at the sound of my gasp, and suddenly all I can think about is getting him to make that sound again.
Making him do it loud enough that it erases all the sounds she used to make.
“Keep talking.” My two words are a quiet plea that I know he will understand, because he’s right, he does know everything about me.
All my deepest and fucking darkest secrets, and still he wants to share this with me.
“Tell me how your cock feels in your hand,” he demands without missing a beat, and fuck, hearing him talk like that feels criminal.
It’s not like I’ve never heard him like this before, I’ve seen him lure many conquests to his bed over the years.
Fuck, I just watched him make our best friend come in a crowded nightclub, but this is different.
It feels different. There is no one else between us, no misunderstood grief fueling us.
No, it’s just me and my best friend taking a step that feels sickeningly natural.
“Thick, warm, hard,” I grunt, before slowly stroking my hand up and down, flicking my thumb across my head and making myself hiss.
“Fuck, Haze.” The two words are dragged out, on another heated breath against my cheek, and the feel of it is damn near maddening. Touching myself feels unnatural, but with him here it feels right. “Stroke it for me nice and tight, I need your precum slick along your shaft.”
Something about the way he says the word need has me stroking myself harder, relishing in the way it feels pleasurable for once.
There is no bile clawing at the back of my throat, no imagining I am anywhere else, no counting the seconds until it’s over.
There is just me, fucking my hand, because my best friend told me to.